Skye THoughts via D. Bohm on Coherence Generating
Maybe of interest?
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
“Dialogue was birthed at a conference I attended in the early 1990s, when David Bohm and 40 others spent a weekend exploring his ideas in free flow conversation. During the weekend something of the experience of a coherent collective field began to form amongst us, and led to the idea of following up to explore how to more consciously facilitate this experience. Bohm believed there existed a flawed process of thought in human beings that both linked and gave rise to a confused sense of identity which led in turn to conflict and incoherent social conditions. Through the process of coming together in groups and dialoguing it was possible to move through the ‘pollution’ in thought, and end up in a different kind of space together. Building on Bohm’s insights, those who pioneered much of the dialogue work in large-scale organizations identified this phase of the dialogic process as the point when the group shifts from being a collection of ‘parts’ or separate individuals and starts thinking and functioning as a collective whole, calling down a deeper shared flow of perception:
This [stage] is the one where people cross over into an awareness of the primacy of the whole... It is also a place where genuinely new possibilities come into being... where people... are personally included but also are aware of the impersonal elements of their participation. In this fourth space, people have an experience of flow – often a collective flow. Synchronicities arise more often here: One person will think of something and another will say it.”
“Dialogue involves people being together in physical form, in a room, and usually seated in a circle. It also works best when the leader or convener of the group is functioning as a whole self, and therefore acts as the seed crystal to help the group cohere. However, when we gather together like this, there is an additional catalyst, which is the group presence itself. There we sit…with all our individual differences of heredity, roles and skills, and at the same time, there we also sit as a collection of inner selves. The inner presence of each individual already shares the commonality of being, and when we sit together, particularly when we sit in a circle, this commonality nudges at us. If we look around, it is the circle itself, rather than any individual, that dominates. … For those whose identity has been pretty firmly wrapped up in only one dimension of themselves, the intensity of this circle space can be uncomfortable, particularly to begin with. But the ‘seed crystal’ person is already conversant with this space, and speaks into and from it, acting like a catalyst or a magnifying lens that intensifies awareness of the group presence. Bit by bit a deeper dimension of being begins to permeate the group. This intensifies the pressure on those who are most disconnected from their own presence, and they can start to grandstand, trying to dominate the space. In Bohm’s terms, this is some of that ‘pollution’ in thought showing up. The person is identified with their agenda, with their ‘position’, with their beliefs, and in the circle space where a new depth of presence is being felt by others, this limited thought pattern jars like a klaxon, announcing its own disconnect and inauthenticity. This behaviour will usually give way as the group presence, rather than any one person’s personality, begins to dominate. Those tempted to use the group field as their sounding board either experience an internal shift, or are given no more oxygen because the collective field is now formed and tangible enough that it is almost impossible to ignore. If the process continues, a sense of oneness, connectedness descends into the group. The difference is palpable.
Now each person is a peer not just in terms of having their expertise and input equally valued but also in terms of each one having access to their own inner self as well as to the group presence. Each is free to expand and evolve new meaning out of the collective mix, unhindered by pre-existing biases or agendas. …
The ability to see the future, to sense new possibilities before they have taken full shape, is about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The field of collective coherence is forming an implicate order that is unique, specific to that grouping. Out of this new interior order, the seeds and insights for the future expansion are engendered.
Dialogue can be used to incubate coherence within an organization, but if the seed crystal of wholeness is not present in at least one individual the experience can be laborious at best, or the shift may simply never occur. Just seating everyone in a circle is not enough to achieve coherence.”
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
Skye HIrst, PhD
Just-in-Time Conversations
jitcc.org
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.** In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl
"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of existence." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Human Beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonder." * *EB White
Hi Skye. Thank you for sharing this story about research. It brought to
mind a personal experience:
Years ago, at a warehouse with about 20 men and women per shift, we
called the work, "puts and gets." At the start of each shift, the
supervisor would meet with each worker to quickly discuss each
individual's quotas for the day. One day, I noticed something unusual—no
one was working. Instead, there was a loud argument between the
supervisor and a worker over the number of puts and gets to do for that
shift.
As I looked around, I saw my coworkers stop what they were doing. They
began gathering in small groups at various locations on the warehouse
floor, chatting and lighting cigarettes. It quickly became clear: a work
slowdown was starting, a classic solidarity practice among union
workers. Eventually, all work stopped completely as the argument
continued over what the workload should be for the shift. There was a
heightened energy in the air, and a growing spirit of "all for one, one
for all" filled the air.
In the end, the worker prevailed by continuing the daily practice,
setting the terms of his or her number of puts and gets. The supervisor
and worker agreed to a quota, and only then did we return to work. It
was at during my warehouse time that I began to understand collective
shop floor practices used by workers to self-manage and influence our
warehouse culture. Through active solidarity, we could slow down, stop,
and resume work to assert control over our situations.
Working in this environment, where rank-and-file direct action was the
norm, had a profound impact on my life. It taught me the power of
collective action and shaped many of my decisions.
Best Wishes and Thanks again in Solidarity with the people,
Tony Budak
On 9/18/2024 6:07 AM, Skye via OSList wrote:
Maybe of interest?
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth,
Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
“Dialogue was birthed at a conference I attended in the early 1990s,
when David Bohm and 40 others spent a weekend exploring his ideas in
free flow conversation. During the weekend something of the experience
of a coherent collective field began to form amongst us, and led to
the idea of following up to explore how to more consciously facilitate
this experience. Bohm believed there existed a flawed process of
thought in human beings that both linked and gave rise to a confused
sense of identity which led in turn to conflict and incoherent social
conditions. Through the process of coming together in groups and
dialoguing it was possible to move through the ‘pollution’ in thought,
and end up in a different kind of space together. Building on Bohm’s
insights, those who pioneered much of the dialogue work in large-scale
organizations identified this phase of the dialogic process as the
point when the group shifts from being a collection of ‘parts’ or
separate individuals and starts thinking and functioning as a
collective whole, calling down a deeper shared flow of perception:
This [stage] is the one where people cross over into an awareness
of the primacy of the whole... It is also a place where genuinely new
possibilities come into being... where people... are personally
included but also are aware of the impersonal elements of their
participation. In this fourth space, people have an experience of flow
– often a collective flow. Synchronicities arise more often here: One
person will think of something and another will say it.”
“Dialogue involves people being together in physical form, in a room,
and usually seated in a circle. It also works best when the leader or
convener of the group is functioning as a whole self, and therefore
acts as the seed crystal to help the group cohere. However, when we
gather together like this, there is an additional catalyst, which is
the group presence itself. There we sit…with all our individual
differences of heredity, roles and skills, and at the same time, there
we also sit as a collection of inner selves. The inner presence of
each individual already shares the commonality of being, and when we
sit together, particularly when we sit in a circle, this commonality
nudges at us. If we look around, it is the circle itself, rather than
any individual, that dominates. … For those whose identity has been
pretty firmly wrapped up in only one dimension of themselves, the
intensity of this circle space can be uncomfortable, particularly to
begin with. But the ‘seed crystal’ person is already conversant with
this space, and speaks into and from it, acting like a catalyst or a
magnifying lens that intensifies awareness of the group presence. Bit
by bit a deeper dimension of being begins to permeate the group. This
intensifies the pressure on those who are most disconnected from their
own presence, and they can start to grandstand, trying to dominate the
space. In Bohm’s terms, this is some of that ‘pollution’ in thought
showing up. The person is identified with their agenda, with their
‘position’, with their beliefs, and in the circle space where a new
depth of presence is being felt by others, this limited thought
pattern jars like a klaxon, announcing its own disconnect and
inauthenticity. This behaviour will usually give way as the group
presence, rather than any one person’s personality, begins to
dominate. Those tempted to use the group field as their sounding board
either experience an internal shift, or are given no more oxygen
because the collective field is now formed and tangible enough that
it is almost impossible to ignore. If the process continues, a sense
of oneness, connectedness descends into the group. The difference is
palpable.
Now each person is a peer not just in terms of having their
expertise and input equally valued but also in terms of each one
having access to their own inner self as well as to the group
presence. Each is free to expand and evolve new meaning out of the
collective mix, unhindered by pre-existing biases or agendas. …
The ability to see the future, to sense new possibilities before
they have taken full shape, is about the whole being greater than the
sum of its parts. The field of collective coherence is forming an
implicate order that is unique, specific to that grouping. Out of
this new interior order, the seeds and insights for the future
expansion are engendered.
Dialogue can be used to incubate coherence within an organization,
but if the seed crystal of wholeness is not present in at least one
individual the experience can be laborious at best, or the shift may
simply never occur. Just seating everyone in a circle is not enough to
achieve coherence.”
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth,
Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
Skye HIrst, PhD
/Just-in-Time/ Conversations
jitcc.org http://jitcc.org
/"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is
our power to choose our response.//**//In our response lies our
growth and our freedom/.” Viktor Frankl
/"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode
of existence."/ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"/Human Beings must always be on the watch for the coming of
wonder."////EB White/
OSList mailing list --everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email toeveryone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here:https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy : http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
*Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968
*with a Learning Network : doer :
*
*Click HERE to Meet with Tony
https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
See Lev Vygotsky work at https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
On 9/19/2024 3:06 AM, Tony Budak via OSList wrote:
Hi Skye. Thank you for sharing this story about research. It brought
to mind a personal experience:
Years ago, at a warehouse with about 20 men and women per shift, we
called the work, "puts and gets." At the start of each shift, the
supervisor would meet with each worker to quickly discuss each
individual's quotas for the day. One day, I noticed something
unusual—no one was working. Instead, there was a loud argument between
the supervisor and a worker over the number of puts and gets to do for
that shift.
As I looked around, I saw my coworkers stop what they were doing. They
began gathering in small groups at various locations on the warehouse
floor, chatting and lighting cigarettes. It quickly became clear: a
work slowdown was starting, a classic solidarity practice among union
workers. Eventually, all work stopped completely as the argument
continued over what the workload should be for the shift. There was a
heightened energy in the air, and a growing spirit of "all for one,
one for all" filled the air.
In the end, the worker prevailed by continuing the daily practice,
setting the terms of his or her number of puts and gets. The
supervisor and worker agreed to a quota, and only then did we return
to work. It was at during my warehouse time that I began to understand
collective shop floor practices used by workers to self-manage and
influence our warehouse culture. Through active solidarity, we could
slow down, stop, and resume work to assert control over our situations.
Working in this environment, where rank-and-file direct action was the
norm, had a profound impact on my life. It taught me the power of
collective action and shaped many of my decisions.
Best Wishes and Thanks again in Solidarity with the people,
Tony Budak
On 9/18/2024 6:07 AM, Skye via OSList wrote:
Maybe of interest?
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of
Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
“Dialogue was birthed at a conference I attended in the early 1990s,
when David Bohm and 40 others spent a weekend exploring his ideas in
free flow conversation. During the weekend something of the
experience of a coherent collective field began to form amongst us,
and led to the idea of following up to explore how to more
consciously facilitate this experience. Bohm believed there existed a
flawed process of thought in human beings that both linked and gave
rise to a confused sense of identity which led in turn to conflict
and incoherent social conditions. Through the process of coming
together in groups and dialoguing it was possible to move through the
‘pollution’ in thought, and end up in a different kind of space
together. Building on Bohm’s insights, those who pioneered much of
the dialogue work in large-scale organizations identified this phase
of the dialogic process as the point when the group shifts from
being a collection of ‘parts’ or separate individuals and starts
thinking and functioning as a collective whole, calling down a
deeper shared flow of perception:
This [stage] is the one where people cross over into an awareness
of the primacy of the whole... It is also a place where genuinely new
possibilities come into being... where people... are personally
included but also are aware of the impersonal elements of their
participation. In this fourth space, people have an experience of
flow – often a collective flow. Synchronicities arise more often
here: One person will think of something and another will say it.”
“Dialogue involves people being together in physical form, in a room,
and usually seated in a circle. It also works best when the leader or
convener of the group is functioning as a whole self, and therefore
acts as the seed crystal to help the group cohere. However, when we
gather together like this, there is an additional catalyst, which is
the group presence itself. There we sit…with all our individual
differences of heredity, roles and skills, and at the same time,
there we also sit as a collection of inner selves. The inner presence
of each individual already shares the commonality of being, and when
we sit together, particularly when we sit in a circle, this
commonality nudges at us. If we look around, it is the circle itself,
rather than any individual, that dominates. … For those whose
identity has been pretty firmly wrapped up in only one dimension of
themselves, the intensity of this circle space can be uncomfortable,
particularly to begin with. But the ‘seed crystal’ person is already
conversant with this space, and speaks into and from it, acting like
a catalyst or a magnifying lens that intensifies awareness of the
group presence. Bit by bit a deeper dimension of being begins to
permeate the group. This intensifies the pressure on those who are
most disconnected from their own presence, and they can start to
grandstand, trying to dominate the space. In Bohm’s terms, this is
some of that ‘pollution’ in thought showing up. The person is
identified with their agenda, with their ‘position’, with their
beliefs, and in the circle space where a new depth of presence is
being felt by others, this limited thought pattern jars like a
klaxon, announcing its own disconnect and inauthenticity. This
behaviour will usually give way as the group presence, rather than
any one person’s personality, begins to dominate. Those tempted to
use the group field as their sounding board either experience an
internal shift, or are given no more oxygen because the collective
field is now formed and tangible enough that it is almost impossible
to ignore. If the process continues, a sense of oneness,
connectedness descends into the group. The difference is palpable.
Now each person is a peer not just in terms of having their
expertise and input equally valued but also in terms of each one
having access to their own inner self as well as to the group
presence. Each is free to expand and evolve new meaning out of the
collective mix, unhindered by pre-existing biases or agendas. …
The ability to see the future, to sense new possibilities before
they have taken full shape, is about the whole being greater than the
sum of its parts. The field of collective coherence is forming an
implicate order that is unique, specific to that grouping. Out of
this new interior order, the seeds and insights for the future
expansion are engendered.
Dialogue can be used to incubate coherence within an organization,
but if the seed crystal of wholeness is not present in at least one
individual the experience can be laborious at best, or the shift may
simply never occur. Just seating everyone in a circle is not enough
to achieve coherence.”
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of
Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
Skye HIrst, PhD
/Just-in-Time/ Conversations
jitcc.org http://jitcc.org
/"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is
our power to choose our response.//**//In our response lies our
growth and our freedom/.” Viktor Frankl
/"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her
mode of existence."/ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"/Human Beings must always be on the watch for the coming of
wonder."////EB White/
OSList mailing list --everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email toeveryone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here:https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy :
http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
*Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968
*with a Learning Network : doer :
*
*Click HERE to Meet with Tony
https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
OSList mailing list --everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email toeveryone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here:https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy : http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
*Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968
*with a Learning Network : doer :
*
*Click HERE to Meet with Tony
https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
Thanks Skye. I have experienced several "Bohm" dialogues, and I resonate
with the recommendation that the facilitator be well prepared to be
"functioning as a whole self".
Some of the dialogues that were convened yearly over several years in New
Mexico, among Indigenous and Western scientists, scholars, linguists, and
spiritual practitioners, were very powerful. (Visitors were invited to
witness, seated outside the dialogue circle, for the three day dialogues.)
Mr. Leroy Little Bear, former director of Native Studies at Harvard, was
the facilitator.
I was always curious about the varied skill levels of facilitators in Open
Space breakouts. Growing our capacity for this work over time, with
experience of more than one OST events.
My mentor John D. Adams considered both dialogue and OST to be processes
that help us sink beneath our taken-for-granted worldviews, in different
ways.
Interesting that OST facilitation seems so simple (we know it's not) and
dialogue facilitation seems to require so much.
Just today's musing.
PS thanks Tony for the great story.
Warmly,
Jeff
Gulf Coast Florida
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 11:29 AM Tony Budak via OSList everyone@oslist.org
wrote:
See Lev Vygotsky work at https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
On 9/19/2024 3:06 AM, Tony Budak via OSList wrote:
Hi Skye. Thank you for sharing this story about research. It brought to
mind a personal experience:
Years ago, at a warehouse with about 20 men and women per shift, we called
the work, "puts and gets." At the start of each shift, the supervisor would
meet with each worker to quickly discuss each individual's quotas for the
day. One day, I noticed something unusual—no one was working. Instead,
there was a loud argument between the supervisor and a worker over the
number of puts and gets to do for that shift.
As I looked around, I saw my coworkers stop what they were doing. They
began gathering in small groups at various locations on the warehouse
floor, chatting and lighting cigarettes. It quickly became clear: a work
slowdown was starting, a classic solidarity practice among union workers.
Eventually, all work stopped completely as the argument continued over what
the workload should be for the shift. There was a heightened energy in the
air, and a growing spirit of "all for one, one for all" filled the air.
In the end, the worker prevailed by continuing the daily practice, setting
the terms of his or her number of puts and gets. The supervisor and worker
agreed to a quota, and only then did we return to work. It was at during my
warehouse time that I began to understand collective shop floor practices
used by workers to self-manage and influence our warehouse culture. Through
active solidarity, we could slow down, stop, and resume work to assert
control over our situations.
Working in this environment, where rank-and-file direct action was the
norm, had a profound impact on my life. It taught me the power of
collective action and shaped many of my decisions.
Best Wishes and Thanks again in Solidarity with the people,
Tony Budak
On 9/18/2024 6:07 AM, Skye via OSList wrote:
Maybe of interest?
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth,
Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
“Dialogue was birthed at a conference I attended in the early 1990s, when
David Bohm and 40 others spent a weekend exploring his ideas in free flow
conversation. During the weekend something of the experience of a
coherent collective field began to form amongst us, and led to the idea
of following up to explore how to more consciously facilitate this
experience. Bohm believed there existed a flawed process of thought in
human beings that both linked and gave rise to a confused sense of identity
which led in turn to conflict and incoherent social conditions. Through the
process of coming together in groups and dialoguing it was possible to move
through the ‘pollution’ in thought, and end up in a different kind of space
together. Building on Bohm’s insights, those who pioneered much of the
dialogue work in large-scale organizations identified this phase of the
dialogic process as the point when the group shifts from being a
collection of ‘parts’ or separate individuals and starts thinking and
functioning as a collective whole, calling down a deeper shared flow of
perception:
This [stage] is the one where people cross over into an awareness of
the primacy of the whole... It is also a place where genuinely new
possibilities come into being... where people... are personally included
but also are aware of the impersonal elements of their participation. In
this fourth space, people have an experience of flow – often a collective
flow. Synchronicities arise more often here: One person will think of
something and another will say it.”
“Dialogue involves people being together in physical form, in a room, and
usually seated in a circle. It also works best when the leader or convener
of the group is functioning as a whole self, and therefore acts as the seed
crystal to help the group cohere. However, when we gather together like
this, there is an additional catalyst, which is the group presence itself.
There we sit…with all our individual differences of heredity, roles and
skills, and at the same time, there we also sit as a collection of inner
selves. The inner presence of each individual already shares the
commonality of being, and when we sit together, particularly when we sit in
a circle, this commonality nudges at us. If we look around, it is the
circle itself, rather than any individual, that dominates. … For those
whose identity has been pretty firmly wrapped up in only one dimension of
themselves, the intensity of this circle space can be uncomfortable,
particularly to begin with. But the ‘seed crystal’ person is already
conversant with this space, and speaks into and from it, acting like a
catalyst or a magnifying lens that intensifies awareness of the group
presence. Bit by bit a deeper dimension of being begins to permeate the
group. This intensifies the pressure on those who are most disconnected
from their own presence, and they can start to grandstand, trying to
dominate the space. In Bohm’s terms, this is some of that ‘pollution’ in
thought showing up. The person is identified with their agenda, with their
‘position’, with their beliefs, and in the circle space where a new
depth of presence is being felt by others, this limited thought pattern
jars like a klaxon, announcing its own disconnect and inauthenticity. This
behaviour will usually give way as the group presence, rather than any one
person’s personality, begins to dominate. Those tempted to use the group
field as their sounding board either experience an internal shift, or are
given no more oxygen because the collective field is now formed and
tangible enough that it is almost impossible to ignore. If the process
continues, a sense of oneness, connectedness descends into the group.
The difference is palpable.
Now each person is a peer not just in terms of having their
expertise and input equally valued but also in terms of each one having
access to their own inner self as well as to the group presence. Each is
free to expand and evolve new meaning out of the collective mix, unhindered
by pre-existing biases or agendas. …
The ability to see the future, to sense new possibilities before they
have taken full shape, is about the whole being greater than the sum of its
parts. The field of collective coherence is forming an implicate order
that is unique, specific to that grouping. Out of this new interior order,
the seeds and insights for the future expansion are engendered.
Dialogue can be used to incubate coherence within an organization,
but if the seed crystal of wholeness is not present in at least one
individual the experience can be laborious at best, or the shift may simply
never occur. Just seating everyone in a circle is not enough to achieve
coherence.”
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth,
Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
Skye HIrst, PhD
Just-in-Time Conversations
jitcc.org http://jitcc.org
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our
power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our
freedom*.*” Viktor Frankl
"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of
existence." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Human Beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonder."
EB White
OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy :
http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
*Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968 *
with a Learning Network : doer :
Click HERE to Meet with Tony
https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy :
http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
*Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968 *
with a Learning Network : doer :
Click HERE to Meet with Tony
https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
I forgot to add the tribal affiliation of Leroy Little Bear (Blackfoot).
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 12:33 PM Jeff Aitken r.jeff.aitken@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Skye. I have experienced several "Bohm" dialogues, and I resonate
with the recommendation that the facilitator be well prepared to be
"functioning as a whole self".
Some of the dialogues that were convened yearly over several years in New
Mexico, among Indigenous and Western scientists, scholars, linguists, and
spiritual practitioners, were very powerful. (Visitors were invited to
witness, seated outside the dialogue circle, for the three day dialogues.)
Mr. Leroy Little Bear, former director of Native Studies at Harvard, was
the facilitator.
I was always curious about the varied skill levels of facilitators in Open
Space breakouts. Growing our capacity for this work over time, with
experience of more than one OST events.
My mentor John D. Adams considered both dialogue and OST to be processes
that help us sink beneath our taken-for-granted worldviews, in different
ways.
Interesting that OST facilitation seems so simple (we know it's not) and
dialogue facilitation seems to require so much.
Just today's musing.
PS thanks Tony for the great story.
Warmly,
Jeff
Gulf Coast Florida
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 11:29 AM Tony Budak via OSList everyone@oslist.org
wrote:
See Lev Vygotsky work at https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
On 9/19/2024 3:06 AM, Tony Budak via OSList wrote:
Hi Skye. Thank you for sharing this story about research. It brought to
mind a personal experience:
Years ago, at a warehouse with about 20 men and women per shift, we
called the work, "puts and gets." At the start of each shift, the
supervisor would meet with each worker to quickly discuss each individual's
quotas for the day. One day, I noticed something unusual—no one was
working. Instead, there was a loud argument between the supervisor and a
worker over the number of puts and gets to do for that shift.
As I looked around, I saw my coworkers stop what they were doing. They
began gathering in small groups at various locations on the warehouse
floor, chatting and lighting cigarettes. It quickly became clear: a work
slowdown was starting, a classic solidarity practice among union workers.
Eventually, all work stopped completely as the argument continued over what
the workload should be for the shift. There was a heightened energy in the
air, and a growing spirit of "all for one, one for all" filled the air.
In the end, the worker prevailed by continuing the daily practice,
setting the terms of his or her number of puts and gets. The supervisor and
worker agreed to a quota, and only then did we return to work. It was at
during my warehouse time that I began to understand collective shop floor
practices used by workers to self-manage and influence our warehouse
culture. Through active solidarity, we could slow down, stop, and resume
work to assert control over our situations.
Working in this environment, where rank-and-file direct action was the
norm, had a profound impact on my life. It taught me the power of
collective action and shaped many of my decisions.
Best Wishes and Thanks again in Solidarity with the people,
Tony Budak
On 9/18/2024 6:07 AM, Skye via OSList wrote:
Maybe of interest?
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth,
Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
“Dialogue was birthed at a conference I attended in the early 1990s,
when David Bohm and 40 others spent a weekend exploring his ideas in free
flow conversation. During the weekend something of the experience of a
coherent collective field began to form amongst us, and led to the idea
of following up to explore how to more consciously facilitate this
experience. Bohm believed there existed a flawed process of thought in
human beings that both linked and gave rise to a confused sense of identity
which led in turn to conflict and incoherent social conditions. Through the
process of coming together in groups and dialoguing it was possible to move
through the ‘pollution’ in thought, and end up in a different kind of space
together. Building on Bohm’s insights, those who pioneered much of the
dialogue work in large-scale organizations identified this phase of the
dialogic process as the point when the group shifts from being a
collection of ‘parts’ or separate individuals and starts thinking and
functioning as a collective whole, calling down a deeper shared flow of
perception:
This [stage] is the one where people cross over into an awareness of
the primacy of the whole... It is also a place where genuinely new
possibilities come into being... where people... are personally included
but also are aware of the impersonal elements of their participation. In
this fourth space, people have an experience of flow – often a collective
flow. Synchronicities arise more often here: One person will think of
something and another will say it.”
“Dialogue involves people being together in physical form, in a room, and
usually seated in a circle. It also works best when the leader or convener
of the group is functioning as a whole self, and therefore acts as the seed
crystal to help the group cohere. However, when we gather together like
this, there is an additional catalyst, which is the group presence itself.
There we sit…with all our individual differences of heredity, roles and
skills, and at the same time, there we also sit as a collection of inner
selves. The inner presence of each individual already shares the
commonality of being, and when we sit together, particularly when we sit in
a circle, this commonality nudges at us. If we look around, it is the
circle itself, rather than any individual, that dominates. … For those
whose identity has been pretty firmly wrapped up in only one dimension of
themselves, the intensity of this circle space can be uncomfortable,
particularly to begin with. But the ‘seed crystal’ person is already
conversant with this space, and speaks into and from it, acting like a
catalyst or a magnifying lens that intensifies awareness of the group
presence. Bit by bit a deeper dimension of being begins to permeate the
group. This intensifies the pressure on those who are most disconnected
from their own presence, and they can start to grandstand, trying to
dominate the space. In Bohm’s terms, this is some of that ‘pollution’ in
thought showing up. The person is identified with their agenda, with their
‘position’, with their beliefs, and in the circle space where a new
depth of presence is being felt by others, this limited thought pattern
jars like a klaxon, announcing its own disconnect and inauthenticity. This
behaviour will usually give way as the group presence, rather than any one
person’s personality, begins to dominate. Those tempted to use the group
field as their sounding board either experience an internal shift, or are
given no more oxygen because the collective field is now formed and
tangible enough that it is almost impossible to ignore. If the process
continues, a sense of oneness, connectedness descends into the group.
The difference is palpable.
Now each person is a peer not just in terms of having their
expertise and input equally valued but also in terms of each one having
access to their own inner self as well as to the group presence. Each
is free to expand and evolve new meaning out of the collective mix,
unhindered by pre-existing biases or agendas. …
The ability to see the future, to sense new possibilities before they
have taken full shape, is about the whole being greater than the sum of its
parts. The field of collective coherence is forming an implicate order
that is unique, specific to that grouping. Out of this new interior order,
the seeds and insights for the future expansion are engendered.
Dialogue can be used to incubate coherence within an organization,
but if the seed crystal of wholeness is not present in at least one
individual the experience can be laborious at best, or the shift may simply
never occur. Just seating everyone in a circle is not enough to achieve
coherence.”
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth,
Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
Skye HIrst, PhD
Just-in-Time Conversations
jitcc.org http://jitcc.org
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our
power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our
freedom*.*” Viktor Frankl
"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of
existence." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Human Beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonder."
EB White
OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy :
http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
*Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968 *
with a Learning Network : doer :
Click HERE to Meet with Tony
https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
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See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy :
http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
*Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968 *
with a Learning Network : doer :
Click HERE to Meet with Tony
https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
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To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here:
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Thanks for the article Skye. And the story Tony. I agree, Jeff, that both dialogue and OST help us step into emergence.
I have such great memories of Bohm dialogue! Around 1991, I was researching organizational learning for the company I worked for and attended a conference where Peter Senge was the keynote speaker. His seminal book, The Fifth Discipline, was published in 1990. He spoke of Bohm dialogue. And then he ran a conference in Portland, Oregon. The room was set in a 2-row deep concentric circle. We did Bohm Dialogue with 180 people. I remember Peter saying it was an experiment. His guidance was to listen deeply and speak only when moved to do so. And if you were triggered in some way, rather than reacting, notice how it moved through you. What assumptions did you discover? He suggested metaphorically hanging them in front of you so that you could see them but not be held from hearing others by them.
I have no memory of what we discussed. Just of watching in awe as a deep inquiry flowed through this group. I experienced what I was thinking come out of other people’s mouths. It was amazing. When that circle ended, the breakout sessions were organized around the five disciplines. I headed to straight to the group that was continuing to practice dialogue. Following the conference, a Seattle participant sent a fax (yes, this predated email) to everyone from the Seattle area who attended asking if we wanted to keep practicing Bohm Dialogue. About a dozen of us met weekly for several years, with people coming and going. It was such deep learning.
Probably part of what prepared me for Open Space when I ran into it in 1995.
In the first Open Space I ran on my own in 1995, I was blown away when I watched a group of about 20 people, mostly network technicians at U S WEST, sitting in a circle in deep dialogue around a gnarly issue. No training. No outside facilitator. Just their innate desire to understand each other around an issue that mattered to them. It made me a believer that dialogue is a birthright. We’d live in a different world if our default way of conversation were dialogue, which is based in inquiry, rather than debate, which is based in advocacy.
Peggy
P.S. The Open Space I was talking about above was a result of the one Harrison did with me at U S WEST that we did a video https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/25251316 about.
Peggy Holman
Co-chair, Berrett-Koehler Foundation https://www.bkfoundation.org/
peggy@peggyholman.com
Bellevue, WA 98006
206-948-0432
www.peggyholman.com
Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity https://peggyholman.com/papers/engaging-emergence/
"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become
the fire".
-- Drew Dellinger
On Sep 19, 2024, at 9:44 AM, Jeff Aitken via OSList everyone@oslist.org wrote:
I forgot to add the tribal affiliation of Leroy Little Bear (Blackfoot).
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 12:33 PM Jeff Aitken <r.jeff.aitken@gmail.com mailto:r.jeff.aitken@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Skye. I have experienced several "Bohm" dialogues, and I resonate with the recommendation that the facilitator be well prepared to be "functioning as a whole self".
Some of the dialogues that were convened yearly over several years in New Mexico, among Indigenous and Western scientists, scholars, linguists, and spiritual practitioners, were very powerful. (Visitors were invited to witness, seated outside the dialogue circle, for the three day dialogues.) Mr. Leroy Little Bear, former director of Native Studies at Harvard, was the facilitator.
I was always curious about the varied skill levels of facilitators in Open Space breakouts. Growing our capacity for this work over time, with experience of more than one OST events.
My mentor John D. Adams considered both dialogue and OST to be processes that help us sink beneath our taken-for-granted worldviews, in different ways.
Interesting that OST facilitation seems so simple (we know it's not) and dialogue facilitation seems to require so much.
Just today's musing.
PS thanks Tony for the great story.
Warmly,
Jeff
Gulf Coast Florida
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 11:29 AM Tony Budak via OSList <everyone@oslist.org mailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:
See Lev Vygotsky work at https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
On 9/19/2024 3:06 AM, Tony Budak via OSList wrote:
Hi Skye. Thank you for sharing this story about research. It brought to mind a personal experience:
Years ago, at a warehouse with about 20 men and women per shift, we called the work, "puts and gets." At the start of each shift, the supervisor would meet with each worker to quickly discuss each individual's quotas for the day. One day, I noticed something unusual—no one was working. Instead, there was a loud argument between the supervisor and a worker over the number of puts and gets to do for that shift.
As I looked around, I saw my coworkers stop what they were doing. They began gathering in small groups at various locations on the warehouse floor, chatting and lighting cigarettes. It quickly became clear: a work slowdown was starting, a classic solidarity practice among union workers. Eventually, all work stopped completely as the argument continued over what the workload should be for the shift. There was a heightened energy in the air, and a growing spirit of "all for one, one for all" filled the air.
In the end, the worker prevailed by continuing the daily practice, setting the terms of his or her number of puts and gets. The supervisor and worker agreed to a quota, and only then did we return to work. It was at during my warehouse time that I began to understand collective shop floor practices used by workers to self-manage and influence our warehouse culture. Through active solidarity, we could slow down, stop, and resume work to assert control over our situations.
Working in this environment, where rank-and-file direct action was the norm, had a profound impact on my life. It taught me the power of collective action and shaped many of my decisions.
Best Wishes and Thanks again in Solidarity with the people,
Tony Budak
On 9/18/2024 6:07 AM, Skye via OSList wrote:
Maybe of interest?
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
“Dialogue was birthed at a conference I attended in the early 1990s, when David Bohm and 40 others spent a weekend exploring his ideas in free flow conversation. During the weekend something of the experience of a coherent collective field began to form amongst us, and led to the idea of following up to explore how to more consciously facilitate this experience. Bohm believed there existed a flawed process of thought in human beings that both linked and gave rise to a confused sense of identity which led in turn to conflict and incoherent social conditions. Through the process of coming together in groups and dialoguing it was possible to move through the ‘pollution’ in thought, and end up in a different kind of space together. Building on Bohm’s insights, those who pioneered much of the dialogue work in large-scale organizations identified this phase of the dialogic process as the point when the group shifts from being a collection of ‘parts’ or separate individuals and starts thinking and functioning as a collective whole, calling down a deeper shared flow of perception:
This [stage] is the one where people cross over into an awareness of the primacy of the whole... It is also a place where genuinely new possibilities come into being... where people... are personally included but also are aware of the impersonal elements of their participation. In this fourth space, people have an experience of flow – often a collective flow. Synchronicities arise more often here: One person will think of something and another will say it.”
“Dialogue involves people being together in physical form, in a room, and usually seated in a circle. It also works best when the leader or convener of the group is functioning as a whole self, and therefore acts as the seed crystal to help the group cohere. However, when we gather together like this, there is an additional catalyst, which is the group presence itself. There we sit…with all our individual differences of heredity, roles and skills, and at the same time, there we also sit as a collection of inner selves. The inner presence of each individual already shares the commonality of being, and when we sit together, particularly when we sit in a circle, this commonality nudges at us. If we look around, it is the circle itself, rather than any individual, that dominates. … For those whose identity has been pretty firmly wrapped up in only one dimension of themselves, the intensity of this circle space can be uncomfortable, particularly to begin with. But the ‘seed crystal’ person is already conversant with this space, and speaks into and from it, acting like a catalyst or a magnifying lens that intensifies awareness of the group presence. Bit by bit a deeper dimension of being begins to permeate the group. This intensifies the pressure on those who are most disconnected from their own presence, and they can start to grandstand, trying to dominate the space. In Bohm’s terms, this is some of that ‘pollution’ in thought showing up. The person is identified with their agenda, with their ‘position’, with their beliefs, and in the circle space where a new depth of presence is being felt by others, this limited thought pattern jars like a klaxon, announcing its own disconnect and inauthenticity. This behaviour will usually give way as the group presence, rather than any one person’s personality, begins to dominate. Those tempted to use the group field as their sounding board either experience an internal shift, or are given no more oxygen because the collective field is now formed and tangible enough that it is almost impossible to ignore. If the process continues, a sense of oneness, connectedness descends into the group. The difference is palpable.
Now each person is a peer not just in terms of having their expertise and input equally valued but also in terms of each one having access to their own inner self as well as to the group presence. Each is free to expand and evolve new meaning out of the collective mix, unhindered by pre-existing biases or agendas. …
The ability to see the future, to sense new possibilities before they have taken full shape, is about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The field of collective coherence is forming an implicate order that is unique, specific to that grouping. Out of this new interior order, the seeds and insights for the future expansion are engendered.
Dialogue can be used to incubate coherence within an organization, but if the seed crystal of wholeness is not present in at least one individual the experience can be laborious at best, or the shift may simply never occur. Just seating everyone in a circle is not enough to achieve coherence.”
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
Skye HIrst, PhD
Just-in-Time Conversations
jitcc.org http://jitcc.org/
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl
"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of existence." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Human Beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonder." EB White
OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org mailto:everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org mailto:everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy : http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968
with a Learning Network : doer :
Click HERE to Meet with Tony https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
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--
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy : http://www.sustainwellbeing.net/Key.html
Be a Learning Network PLAYER https://hourworld.org/bank/?hw=1968
with a Learning Network : doer :
Click HERE to Meet with Tony https://pickatime.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php
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Thanks for sharing these very important pieces of our common histories and community founding. I remember some of this same deep dialogue occurring between Hewlett and Packard employees which created such a great company (founders of Silicon Valley) &helped them spin off inkjet/laser printers @ that time. Our tools are certainly socio-economic change agents. As technology (media) changes and we age I’m glad we can documentmore fully (uTube/vimeo, etc) the power involved. Again, thank you for your part in this !- -Chad Amherst MA usa
On Sunday, September 22, 2024, 04:38:04 PM EDT, Peggy Holman via OSList everyone@oslist.org wrote:
Thanks for the article Skye. And the story Tony. I agree, Jeff, that both dialogue and OST help us step into emergence.
I have such great memories of Bohm dialogue! Around 1991, I was researching organizational learning for the company I worked for and attended a conference where Peter Senge was the keynote speaker. His seminal book, The Fifth Discipline, was published in 1990. He spoke of Bohm dialogue. And then he ran a conference in Portland, Oregon. The room was set in a 2-row deep concentric circle. We did Bohm Dialogue with 180 people. I remember Peter saying it was an experiment. His guidance was to listen deeply and speak only when moved to do so. And if you were triggered in some way, rather than reacting, notice how it moved through you. What assumptions did you discover? He suggested metaphorically hanging them in front of you so that you could see them but not be held from hearing others by them.
I have no memory of what we discussed. Just of watching in awe as a deep inquiry flowed through this group. I experienced what I was thinking come out of other people’s mouths. It was amazing. When that circle ended, the breakout sessions were organized around the five disciplines. I headed to straight to the group that was continuing to practice dialogue. Following the conference, a Seattle participant sent a fax (yes, this predated email) to everyone from the Seattle area who attended asking if we wanted to keep practicing Bohm Dialogue. About a dozen of us met weekly for several years, with people coming and going. It was such deep learning.
Probably part of what prepared me for Open Space when I ran into it in 1995.
In the first Open Space I ran on my own in 1995, I was blown away when I watched a group of about 20 people, mostly network technicians at U S WEST, sitting in a circle in deep dialogue around a gnarly issue. No training. No outside facilitator. Just their innate desire to understand each other around an issue that mattered to them. It made me a believer that dialogue is a birthright. We’d live in a different world if our default way of conversation were dialogue, which is based in inquiry, rather than debate, which is based in advocacy.
Peggy
P.S. The Open Space I was talking about above was a result of the one Harrison did with me at U S WEST that we did a video about.
Peggy HolmanCo-chair, Berrett-Koehler Foundation
peggy@peggyholman.com
Bellevue, WA 98006
206-948-0432
www.peggyholman.com
Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity
"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become
the fire".
-- Drew Dellinger
On Sep 19, 2024, at 9:44 AM, Jeff Aitken via OSList everyone@oslist.org wrote:
I forgot to add the tribal affiliation of Leroy Little Bear (Blackfoot).
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 12:33 PM Jeff Aitken r.jeff.aitken@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Skye. I have experienced several "Bohm" dialogues, and I resonate with the recommendation that the facilitator be well prepared to be "functioning as a whole self".
Some of the dialogues that were convened yearly over several years in New Mexico, among Indigenous and Western scientists, scholars, linguists, and spiritual practitioners, were very powerful. (Visitors were invited to witness, seated outside the dialogue circle, for the three day dialogues.) Mr. Leroy Little Bear, former director of Native Studies at Harvard, was the facilitator.
I was always curious about the varied skill levels of facilitators in Open Space breakouts. Growing our capacity for this work over time, with experience of more than one OST events.
My mentor John D. Adams considered both dialogue and OST to be processes that help us sink beneath our taken-for-granted worldviews, in different ways.
Interesting that OST facilitation seems so simple (we know it's not) and dialogue facilitation seems to require so much.
Just today's musing.
PS thanks Tony for the great story.
Warmly,JeffGulf Coast Florida
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 11:29 AM Tony Budak via OSList everyone@oslist.org wrote:
See Lev Vygotsky work at https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
On 9/19/2024 3:06 AM, Tony Budak via OSList wrote:
Hi Skye. Thank you for sharing this story about research. It brought to mind a personal experience:
Years ago, at a warehouse with about 20 men and women per shift, we called the work, "puts and gets." At the start of each shift, the supervisor would meet with each worker to quickly discuss each individual's quotas for the day. One day, I noticed something unusual—no one was working. Instead, there was a loud argument between the supervisor and a worker over the number of puts and gets to do for that shift.
As I looked around, I saw my coworkers stop what they were doing. They began gathering in small groups at various locations on the warehouse floor, chatting and lighting cigarettes. It quickly became clear: a work slowdown was starting, a classic solidarity practice among union workers. Eventually, all work stopped completely as the argument continued over what the workload should be for the shift. There was a heightened energy in the air, and a growing spirit of "all for one, one for all" filled the air.
In the end, the worker prevailed by continuing the daily practice, setting the terms of his or her number of puts and gets. The supervisor and worker agreed to a quota, and only then did we return to work. It was at during my warehouse time that I began to understand collective shop floor practices used by workers to self-manage and influence our warehouse culture. Through active solidarity, we could slow down, stop, and resume work to assert control over our situations.
Working in this environment, where rank-and-file direct action was the norm, had a profound impact on my life. It taught me the power of collective action and shaped many of my decisions.
Best Wishes and Thanks again in Solidarity with the people,
Tony Budak
On 9/18/2024 6:07 AM, Skye via OSList wrote:
Maybe of interest?
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
“Dialogue was birthed at a conference I attended in the early 1990s, when David Bohm and 40 others spent a weekend exploring his ideas in free flow conversation. During the weekend something of the experience of a coherent collective field began to form amongst us, and led to the idea of following up to explore how to more consciously facilitate this experience. Bohm believed there existed a flawed process of thought in human beings that both linked and gave rise to a confused sense of identity which led in turn to conflict and incoherent social conditions. Through the process of coming together in groups and dialoguing it was possible to move through the ‘pollution’ in thought, and end up in a different kind of space together. Building on Bohm’s insights, those who pioneered much of the dialogue work in large-scale organizations identified this phase of the dialogic process as the point when the group shifts from being a collection of ‘parts’ or separate individuals and starts thinking and functioning as a collective whole, calling down a deeper shared flow of perception:
This [stage] is the one where people cross over into an awareness of the primacy of the whole... It is also a place where genuinely new possibilities come into being... where people... are personally included but also are aware of the impersonal elements of their participation. In this fourth space, people have an experience of flow – often a collective flow. Synchronicities arise more often here: One person will think of something and another will say it.”
“Dialogue involves people being together in physical form, in a room, and usually seated in a circle. It also works best when the leader or convener of the group is functioning as a whole self, and therefore acts as the seed crystal to help the group cohere. However, when we gather together like this, there is an additional catalyst, which is the group presence itself. There we sit…with all our individual differences of heredity, roles and skills, and at the same time, there we also sit as a collection of inner selves. The inner presence of each individual already shares the commonality of being, and when we sit together, particularly when we sit in a circle, this commonality nudges at us. If we look around, it is the circle itself, rather than any individual, that dominates. … For those whose identity has been pretty firmly wrapped up in only one dimension of themselves, the intensity of this circle space can be uncomfortable, particularly to begin with. But the ‘seed crystal’ person is already conversant with this space, and speaks into and from it, acting like a catalyst or a magnifying lens that intensifies awareness of the group presence. Bit by bit a deeper dimension of being begins to permeate the group. This intensifies the pressure on those who are most disconnected from their own presence, and they can start to grandstand, trying to dominate the space. In Bohm’s terms, this is some of that ‘pollution’ in thought showing up. The person is identified with their agenda, with their ‘position’, with their beliefs, and in the circle space where a new depth of presence is being felt by others, this limited thought pattern jars like a klaxon, announcing its own disconnect and inauthenticity. This behaviour will usually give way as the group presence, rather than any one person’s personality, begins to dominate. Those tempted to use the group field as their sounding board either experience an internal shift, or are given no more oxygen because the collective field is now formed and tangible enough that it is almost impossible to ignore. If the process continues, a sense of oneness, connectedness descends into the group. The difference is palpable.
Now each person is a peer not just in terms of having their expertise and input equally valued but also in terms of each one having access to their own inner self as well as to the group presence. Each is free to expand and evolve new meaning out of the collective mix, unhindered by pre-existing biases or agendas. …
The ability to see the future, to sense new possibilities before they have taken full shape, is about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The field of collective coherence is forming an implicate order that is unique, specific to that grouping. Out of this new interior order, the seeds and insights for the future expansion are engendered.
Dialogue can be used to incubate coherence within an organization, but if the seed crystal of wholeness is not present in at least one individual the experience can be laborious at best, or the shift may simply never occur. Just seating everyone in a circle is not enough to achieve coherence.”
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
Skye HIrst, PhD
Just-in-Time Conversations
jitcc.org
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl
"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of existence." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Human Beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonder." EB White
OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy :
Be a Learning Network PLAYER
with a Learning Network : doer :
Click HERE to Meet with Tony
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To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
See the archives here: https://oslist.org/empathy/list/everyone.oslist.org
More Fun - Less Stuff : joy :
Be a Learning Network PLAYER
with a Learning Network : doer :
Click HERE to Meet with Tony
OSList mailing list -- everyone@oslist.org
To unsubscribe send an email to everyone-leave@oslist.org
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I’d like to be part of a Bohm dialogue, couldn’t we do this during a Zoom meetup? I feel unsure about facilitating it, but if possible calenderwise I’d be there. Thomas
On 22. Sep 2024, at 23.36, Peggy Holman via OSList everyone@oslist.org wrote:
Thanks for the article Skye. And the story Tony. I agree, Jeff, that both dialogue and OST help us step into emergence.
I have such great memories of Bohm dialogue! Around 1991, I was researching organizational learning for the company I worked for and attended a conference where Peter Senge was the keynote speaker. His seminal book, The Fifth Discipline, was published in 1990. He spoke of Bohm dialogue. And then he ran a conference in Portland, Oregon. The room was set in a 2-row deep concentric circle. We did Bohm Dialogue with 180 people. I remember Peter saying it was an experiment. His guidance was to listen deeply and speak only when moved to do so. And if you were triggered in some way, rather than reacting, notice how it moved through you. What assumptions did you discover? He suggested metaphorically hanging them in front of you so that you could see them but not be held from hearing others by them.
I have no memory of what we discussed. Just of watching in awe as a deep inquiry flowed through this group. I experienced what I was thinking come out of other people’s mouths. It was amazing. When that circle ended, the breakout sessions were organized around the five disciplines. I headed to straight to the group that was continuing to practice dialogue. Following the conference, a Seattle participant sent a fax (yes, this predated email) to everyone from the Seattle area who attended asking if we wanted to keep practicing Bohm Dialogue. About a dozen of us met weekly for several years, with people coming and going. It was such deep learning.
Probably part of what prepared me for Open Space when I ran into it in 1995.
In the first Open Space I ran on my own in 1995, I was blown away when I watched a group of about 20 people, mostly network technicians at U S WEST, sitting in a circle in deep dialogue around a gnarly issue. No training. No outside facilitator. Just their innate desire to understand each other around an issue that mattered to them. It made me a believer that dialogue is a birthright. We’d live in a different world if our default way of conversation were dialogue, which is based in inquiry, rather than debate, which is based in advocacy.
Peggy
P.S. The Open Space I was talking about above was a result of the one Harrison did with me at U S WEST that we did a video https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/25251316 about.
Peggy Holman
Co-chair, Berrett-Koehler Foundation https://www.bkfoundation.org/
peggy@peggyholman.com mailto:peggy@peggyholman.com
Bellevue, WA 98006
206-948-0432
www.peggyholman.com http://www.peggyholman.com/
Enjoy the award winning Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity https://peggyholman.com/papers/engaging-emergence/
"An angel told me that the only way to step into the fire and not get burnt, is to become
the fire".
-- Drew Dellinger
On Sep 19, 2024, at 9:44 AM, Jeff Aitken via OSList everyone@oslist.org wrote:
I forgot to add the tribal affiliation of Leroy Little Bear (Blackfoot).
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 12:33 PM Jeff Aitken <r.jeff.aitken@gmail.com mailto:r.jeff.aitken@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Skye. I have experienced several "Bohm" dialogues, and I resonate with the recommendation that the facilitator be well prepared to be "functioning as a whole self".
Some of the dialogues that were convened yearly over several years in New Mexico, among Indigenous and Western scientists, scholars, linguists, and spiritual practitioners, were very powerful. (Visitors were invited to witness, seated outside the dialogue circle, for the three day dialogues.) Mr. Leroy Little Bear, former director of Native Studies at Harvard, was the facilitator.
I was always curious about the varied skill levels of facilitators in Open Space breakouts. Growing our capacity for this work over time, with experience of more than one OST events.
My mentor John D. Adams considered both dialogue and OST to be processes that help us sink beneath our taken-for-granted worldviews, in different ways.
Interesting that OST facilitation seems so simple (we know it's not) and dialogue facilitation seems to require so much.
Just today's musing.
PS thanks Tony for the great story.
Warmly,
Jeff
Gulf Coast Florida
On Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 11:29 AM Tony Budak via OSList <everyone@oslist.org mailto:everyone@oslist.org> wrote:
See Lev Vygotsky work at https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
On 9/19/2024 3:06 AM, Tony Budak via OSList wrote:
Hi Skye. Thank you for sharing this story about research. It brought to mind a personal experience:
Years ago, at a warehouse with about 20 men and women per shift, we called the work, "puts and gets." At the start of each shift, the supervisor would meet with each worker to quickly discuss each individual's quotas for the day. One day, I noticed something unusual—no one was working. Instead, there was a loud argument between the supervisor and a worker over the number of puts and gets to do for that shift.
As I looked around, I saw my coworkers stop what they were doing. They began gathering in small groups at various locations on the warehouse floor, chatting and lighting cigarettes. It quickly became clear: a work slowdown was starting, a classic solidarity practice among union workers. Eventually, all work stopped completely as the argument continued over what the workload should be for the shift. There was a heightened energy in the air, and a growing spirit of "all for one, one for all" filled the air.
In the end, the worker prevailed by continuing the daily practice, setting the terms of his or her number of puts and gets. The supervisor and worker agreed to a quota, and only then did we return to work. It was at during my warehouse time that I began to understand collective shop floor practices used by workers to self-manage and influence our warehouse culture. Through active solidarity, we could slow down, stop, and resume work to assert control over our situations.
Working in this environment, where rank-and-file direct action was the norm, had a profound impact on my life. It taught me the power of collective action and shaped many of my decisions.
Best Wishes and Thanks again in Solidarity with the people,
Tony Budak
On 9/18/2024 6:07 AM, Skye via OSList wrote:
Maybe of interest?
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
“Dialogue was birthed at a conference I attended in the early 1990s, when David Bohm and 40 others spent a weekend exploring his ideas in free flow conversation. During the weekend something of the experience of a coherent collective field began to form amongst us, and led to the idea of following up to explore how to more consciously facilitate this experience. Bohm believed there existed a flawed process of thought in human beings that both linked and gave rise to a confused sense of identity which led in turn to conflict and incoherent social conditions. Through the process of coming together in groups and dialoguing it was possible to move through the ‘pollution’ in thought, and end up in a different kind of space together. Building on Bohm’s insights, those who pioneered much of the dialogue work in large-scale organizations identified this phase of the dialogic process as the point when the group shifts from being a collection of ‘parts’ or separate individuals and starts thinking and functioning as a collective whole, calling down a deeper shared flow of perception:
This [stage] is the one where people cross over into an awareness of the primacy of the whole... It is also a place where genuinely new possibilities come into being... where people... are personally included but also are aware of the impersonal elements of their participation. In this fourth space, people have an experience of flow – often a collective flow. Synchronicities arise more often here: One person will think of something and another will say it.”
“Dialogue involves people being together in physical form, in a room, and usually seated in a circle. It also works best when the leader or convener of the group is functioning as a whole self, and therefore acts as the seed crystal to help the group cohere. However, when we gather together like this, there is an additional catalyst, which is the group presence itself. There we sit…with all our individual differences of heredity, roles and skills, and at the same time, there we also sit as a collection of inner selves. The inner presence of each individual already shares the commonality of being, and when we sit together, particularly when we sit in a circle, this commonality nudges at us. If we look around, it is the circle itself, rather than any individual, that dominates. … For those whose identity has been pretty firmly wrapped up in only one dimension of themselves, the intensity of this circle space can be uncomfortable, particularly to begin with. But the ‘seed crystal’ person is already conversant with this space, and speaks into and from it, acting like a catalyst or a magnifying lens that intensifies awareness of the group presence. Bit by bit a deeper dimension of being begins to permeate the group. This intensifies the pressure on those who are most disconnected from their own presence, and they can start to grandstand, trying to dominate the space. In Bohm’s terms, this is some of that ‘pollution’ in thought showing up. The person is identified with their agenda, with their ‘position’, with their beliefs, and in the circle space where a new depth of presence is being felt by others, this limited thought pattern jars like a klaxon, announcing its own disconnect and inauthenticity. This behaviour will usually give way as the group presence, rather than any one person’s personality, begins to dominate. Those tempted to use the group field as their sounding board either experience an internal shift, or are given no more oxygen because the collective field is now formed and tangible enough that it is almost impossible to ignore. If the process continues, a sense of oneness, connectedness descends into the group. The difference is palpable.
Now each person is a peer not just in terms of having their expertise and input equally valued but also in terms of each one having access to their own inner self as well as to the group presence. Each is free to expand and evolve new meaning out of the collective mix, unhindered by pre-existing biases or agendas. …
The ability to see the future, to sense new possibilities before they have taken full shape, is about the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The field of collective coherence is forming an implicate order that is unique, specific to that grouping. Out of this new interior order, the seeds and insights for the future expansion are engendered.
Dialogue can be used to incubate coherence within an organization, but if the seed crystal of wholeness is not present in at least one individual the experience can be laborious at best, or the shift may simply never occur. Just seating everyone in a circle is not enough to achieve coherence.”
—Diana Durham, Coherent Self, Coherent World: A New Synthesis Of Myth, Metaphysics & Bohm's Implicate Order
Skye HIrst, PhD
Just-in-Time Conversations
jitcc.org http://jitcc.org/
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Viktor Frankl
"Nature ever flows, stands never still. Motion or change is her mode of existence." Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Human Beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonder." EB White
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